Via ShutterstockCalifornians living and working in wildfire-prone areas are familiar with the challenges of finding insurance for their homes and businesses, but all homeowners and businesses could soon feel their pain if the dominos in California’s fragile insurance market continue to fall in an unbalanced way.
A view of downtown Los Angeles seen from the Hollywood hills. (Photo: logoboom, via Shutterstock)OPINION: Perhaps the greatest financial risk faced by Californians today has nothing to do with rising interest rates or a looming recession. Rather, it is the loss of access to products they rely upon to protect their most valuable assets: auto, homeowners and commercial insurance.
A brush fire approaches residences in Pacific Palisades in May, 2021. (Photo: BrittanyNY, via Shutterstock)OPINION: As hints of fall weather begin, California residents remain mindful that the risks from Diablo and Santa Ana wind-driven wildfires are still to come. Unfortunately, with California’s riskiest months still approaching, consumers in 2021 must also be aware of a new threat in wildfire planning.
The remains of a home and nearby house in the Glen Ellen area of Sonoma County, following a 2017 fire.(Photo: RebeccaJaneCall, via Shutterstock)Representatives of California’s counties are urging improved measures to cut wildfire risks in the state’s less populated areas, but questioned plans to impose widespread building restrictions.
An aerial view of homes in Temecula, in southern California. (Photo: Jacob Findlay, via Shutterstock)OPINI0N: Anyone who has lived through a summer in Sacramento knows that air conditioning is not a luxury, it is a necessity. When the temperature is well into the 90s, fans can only do so much; and when wildfire smoke blows in and blankets the area for weeks at a time, or when a heat wave strikes, conditions can get dangerous for people without air conditioning.
A man mails in his ballot in the era of the pandemic. (Photo: Wayne Via, Shutterstock)Over five million California voters – nearly a quarter of the state’s registered electorate — have returned ballots for the General Election, which is less than two weeks away. This milestone, hit yesterday at 13 days until the election, wasn’t achieved in 2016 until the day before the election and exceeds the entire early by-mail vote in 2018.
Homeowners watch the billowing smoke of the 2018 Woolsey Fire in Southern California. (Photo: BrittanyNY, via Shutterstock)OPINION: As currently amended —after months of compromise and negotiations— this bill would create a new Insurance Market Action Plan, or IMAP, designed to increase home insurance availability with better coverage and lower rates, and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire damage through home hardening and community mitigation. For many homeowners in high-risk areas, the FAIR Plan is currently the only option for fire insurance.
A view of homes and stores along Bridgeway Street, Sausalito.(Photo: Boris Vetshev, viua Shutterstock)OPINION: During last month’s PG&E Public Safety Power Shutoffs, like so many across California, my family lost electricity for four days. We couldn’t turn on the lights, access the internet or charge our phones. But we didn’t lose water for a moment, thanks to the steps our water provider had taken to prepare for this kind of emergency.
Skyline of downtown Los Angeles on a smoggy day. (Photo0: EvijaF via Shutterstock)OPINION: Growing up in New Orleans, summertime brought mixed feelings. It meant the end of the school year and endless snow cones, but also the beginning of hurricane season. Here in California we experience extreme heat in the summer and floods and fires throughout the year, all made worse by climate change. Unless we take action now to prepare our communities, many will suffer, some more than others.
The Canyon Fire 2 approaches Anaheim in October 2017. (Photo: Aarti Kalyani)OPINION: After a barrage of devastating wildfires raged across our state in recent months, it is time for all Californians to accept a sobering fact: this is the new normal. Several factors — including warmer and drier summers, and decades of fire suppression — have created a California that will be much more susceptible to wildfires in the future.